Truck driver Paul O’Brien of Reliable Carriers Inc. arrives with six cars, including a red and white 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible from a Harley-Davidson dealer in Columbia, Tenn.

The low-slung Chevy’s engine rumbles and bucks, filling the trailer with blue smoke as a driver backs the car out into the sunshine.

Barrett-Jackson’s first 300 cars hit the auction block Tuesday at WestWorld in Scottsdale, but its crews have worked for weeks to verify the provenance and condition of nearly 1,300 classic and one-of-a-kind cars.

As the cars are unloaded, one by one, Barrett-Jackson crews move in with clipboards and high-definition video cameras to record every nick and imperfection.

Barrett-Jackson driver Gary Smith looks over a pristine 1929 Duesenberg Model J Murphy Berline convertible that will be sold during prime time Saturday night.

“Hopefully, I won’t have to drive that one,” the former truck driver says. “That car costs more than I could make in the next 50 years.”

While high-net-worth bidders compete for gleaming cars at Barrett-Jackson, it’s dozens of blue-collar drivers like Smith who serve as the stagehands and troubleshooters keeping the Barrett-Jackson auction rolling in high gear.

Over the next five days, about 70 drivers and a support staff of mechanics will tinker with jammed hood releases, unusual electrical systems and stubborn starters on close to 1,300 vehicles spanning a century.

“With this weather, we’re going to have to warm these babies up,” Smith says.

No driver wants to stall a car as it awaits its few minutes of fame on the auction block.

Smith, 61, of Mesa, a former Yellow Freight truck driver, says that’s never happened to him in his three years on the job at Barrett-Jackson.

“You get a feel for these cars,” he says. “If the carburetor starts to load up, you have to blow it out” by revving the engine.

Smith and fellow crew member Mike Berry grew up with American cars from the 1950s and ’60s that are common at Barrett-Jackson.

Last year, Barrett-Jackson sold 1,274 cars for a total of $88million, and 80 percent of the vehicles were from the Big Three American automakers. General Motors accounted for 46 percent of the cars sold; Ford, 24 percent; and Chrysler, 10 percent.

On Tuesday, the first car across the block, a 1996 Chevrolet Camaro, sold for $6,325.

A 1963 Chevy Nova sold for $6,050, and a bidder paid just over $6,000 for a 1972 Cadillac Eldorado. Prices were far below the six- and seven-figure cars that are on the docket this weekend.

With about 300 cars scheduled for sale Tuesday, drivers were busy shuttling vehicles through crowds of people wearing jackets and scarves.

The drivers have wide-ranging backgrounds: There are race-car drivers, pilots, an eye surgeon and an electrical engineer from the Palo Verde nuclear plant, said Dan Nowack, the company’s driver supervisor.

Most are men, but there are a few women on the crew.

“Dents and scratches happen more often than they should,” Nowack said, noting that the drivers can get distracted pulling into tight parking spaces.

During the auction, Barrett-Jackson drivers are sent to get cars from the show tents and drive them across the busy show grounds to a staging area just outside the main tent.

They only have a little time to get used to a car and its clutch, if it’s a manual transmission, before driving the vehicle up the ramp to the auction block.

The car engines are turned off to reduce fumes inside the auction tent and then the cars are pushed offstage and out of the tent. A “sold” sticker is slapped on the windshield, and the car is returned to its parking spot.

The driver goes to the key-storage tent to pick up another car.

The entire cycle takes about an hour per car, Smith said.

The drivers say they enjoy driving some exceptional cars.

“It’s fun,” says driver Gary Mason, 66, a repo man when he is not working at Barrett-Jackson. “But when you see this many cars, you get a little jaded.”

The job also gives them an inside glimpse into the world of the high rollers who spend big money on prized cars.

Mason recalls talking to car buyers in past years who celebrated too much and could not remember their winning bids from the night before.

“They say, ‘I’ve got to go find out what I bought last night and what I paid for it.’”

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